The Olympiad
by Jelly Bean Omelette
Summary: Lena here, reporting from The Olympiad. Goddess of Gossip, Patron of Paparazzi and those other stupidities. Danger: Spending time with me may cause any secrets to be rapidly uncovered and spread like wildfire. Don't say I didn't warn you.
1. Aline vs Selene

**Chapter 1: Aline vs. Selene**

You'd think, being a goddess, I would have some elegant name that relates somehow to my particular domain.

Like how Selene is Latin for moon? Well, I suppose Selene came before the Romans so the moon was probably named for her. Or did she originate during the rise of Rome? It doesn't exactly matter anyways, we mustn't get bogged down in the technicalities and she's been old news for centuries.

In my line of business being current is everything and Selene has faded since Artemis came into the picture—a much more enigmatic character, if you ask me. Quite the puzzle. Although, there probably isn't any incriminating past; there never is with the celibate goddesses.

I do remember when celibacy was quite the rage back in the 16th Century—Queen Elizabeth was doing it and suddenly everyone was a virgin. I still have several hundred issues filed away, each bearing the name of the most recent cheater. If my memory doesn't serve me wrong—which it seldom does—Aphrodite lasted all of two weeks before shagging a mortal Duke of some sort. Apparently he had 'irresistible' dimples. More like Aphrodite had gotten horny enough to fuck anything in a _mandilion_.

But don't bother yourself with ancient history—it goes round every other week. Missed the last scandal? Don't worry; there'll be another one tomorrow. I don't go a week without hearing that Ares has started a new war somewhere around the Middle East—away from Apollo's favourite vacation spots—over Aphrodite's adulterous deeds—never mind the fact that her relationship with Ares is two-timing in it's self.

You think History repeats it's self? Don't tell that to me—I already know. I lived through, and printed it all. If it happened, whether you knew about it or not, it'll be somewhere in _The Olympiad_'s archives.

I've been alive longer than Newspapers have. Was Born in 16th Century England; I am 476 years old and avidly awaiting the next immortal so I can stop being addressed as 'Oi! Newbie!'

My official title is Aline (formally Aline Lambyrtoun II) Daughter of Athena, Goddess of Gossip, Patron of Paparazzi, Chief and Editor of The Olympiad, but you can call me Lena. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.

Danger: Spending time with me may cause any secrets to be rapidly uncovered and spread like wild fire. Don't say I didn't warn you.

**A.N. I came up with this about a week ago and I wrote this in about ten minutes. THIS IS A PROLOUGE. Next chapters will be longer. This shall be taking a back seat to my other stories unless I end up with like 5 TRILLION reviews so, in that case, I'd probably post more due to popular demand. Any who—like it? Review. Hate it? Review all the same—flames appreciated. **

** ~Jelly**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, save for Lena, ect. ect. blah, blah, all those other stupidities and necessities. **

**~~This A.N. is more than a quarter of the actual chapter *face-palm*.**


	2. Caffeine Jitters and Comma Splices

**Chapter 2: Caffeine Jitters and Comma Splices**

**A.N. I'm writing this; even tough I said this'd take a back seat to my other stories. What can I say? I write when I have inspiration, and muffins. But I digress. Onwards we ride into Lena's world of immortal newspaper politics! **

'Stephi!' I yell, 'I need your piece on that underground weapons ring!'

'IknowIknowIknow.' The bespectacled tree-nymph rushes past me, laptop in one hand and coffee in the other. She plonks it onto the desk causing coffee to slop over the sides and I can see that, due to the caffeine jitters we're all suffering from, more of it has ended up on the carpet than left in the mug. 'I am sending it to you right… now!' Her quivering fingers blur across the keyboard, then slamming on the enter button; she jumps back, giving a slightly frazzled beam.

A window pops up on my screen, bearing Stephi's email address and a miniature paperclip, indicating an attachment. I instinctively reach for the mouse only to be met by the bare table top. My lips twist into a scowl as I move my hand back to the track-pad. What ever happened to those good, old corded mice?

I open the tab and quickly scan the document. It's a trivial piece about dull politics, included only because the rumoured ring-leader is Kizzy Lord; elusive ex-hunter and daughter of Apollo. Expert trouble-brewer and scandal-creator.

I would prefer to spend ten minutes checking over her work but we're already one hour late—a new record—and Henry's piece is in a much more dire need of attention.

Meet Henry FitzRoy—eternal nuisance. Haven't heard of him? Open a History book; the Tudors, Henry VII's children—specifically—illegitimate.

Henry's god of some late, medieval sport that vaguely translates into modern-day bowling (he's under the impression that this gives him the right to saunter round wearing bowling shirts with cheesy slogans like 'my drinking team has a bowling problem' and grin like it's the funniest thing in the world) and he adamantly denies any accusations that pig-headedness is another aspect of his divine rule.

But, I think, you'd have to be pretty darn pig-headed to stumble in, drunk, to an Olympian Counsel meeting. I had the epic misfortune to be sitting in the corner dutifully taking notes. Henry still has 48 years of being grounded to my print room left; that's 2 496 issues-worth of comma splices I have yet to correct. Woe betide me.

And onto paragraph 4.

_'Look out ladies—long time couple, Jenna Mulberry and Scott Harrington (the Annabeth and Percy of their time) are on the rocks. Don't let her Jenna's petite features and cutesy blonde hair fool you, she's a right little devil when it comes to boys. And rumour has caught her and Jace Campbell in a compromising position at his party, Saturday night. Where was Scotty during all of this? There's a question, but he has been spending less time with his girlfriend as of late and more time with Kizzy Lord—'_

'FitzRoy!' He appears at my shoulder looking down at me, wearing an extremely smackable smirk. 'Who tipped you off 'bout Jenna and Jace?'

He scrunches up his eyebrows, staring, deep in thought, down at the table as if the names would be carved into the wood. 'The Appleby twins first; but they're right gossips and not exactly reliable so I asked around and, as far as I can figure, it is true.'

I nod slowly; most of our information comes from tip-offs (and the Appleby twins only ever too eager to dish) sometimes with myself or Stephi investigating—she's brilliant at eavesdropping because nobody ever looks to check if the tree is listening in or not. 'And Harrington with Lord?'

Henry shrugs, 'I don't know. S'just a rumour I heard.' He straightens up, oblivious to my scowl, wanders over to Stephi's desk and takes a huge swig of her coffee.

Stephi shoots me a scandalised look, snatching back the mug and giving Henry a swear-ridden scolding before returning to rearranging the lay-out to accommodate new changes.

'Stephi, can you cut that last bit out of FitzRoy's article?' He makes an incoherent noise of protest. I wrinkle my nose. Henry shows potential—I swear, he really does. (Although, that could just be me hoping he's actually learnt something from me over that past 112 years.) 'We publish _facts_, not common rumours. Besides, it's Kizzy Lord—' I smile wryly, 'she doesn't need to steal other girls' men.'

The clunking and whirring of the printers fills the room. Before I can even shut down my laptop the towering stack of copies is rapidly growing, each pamphlet bearing the title _The Olympiad_.

'FitzRoy.' I say, sliding off the stool to grab my own bundle, 'Can you take Olympus this week? I'll get downtown—I want to pay a visit Miss Mulberry.'

**A.N. This chapter was initially going to be about 3000 words long, stretching from here to Jenna's then back to Lena's apartment at Olympus. But I made a decision to make the chapters of this story shorter—so they're more like scenes than a rounded section of the story developing in a linear sequence. So I'm sorry for lying in my last chapter. **

** That's not to say that each chapter will be 700 words… I've got a feeling that some might be as long as 3000, while some as short as 300. I'm not making any promises, this story has no plan and the only characters invented so far are the ones on the page.**

** One thing you might like to know—all my stories (yeah, all 3! So many!) run parallel to each other. Jenna originated in _Sidelines_. As did Jace (and Scotty and Kizzy to an extent). This story is predominately going to be set in the Manhattan world of the ex-camp half-blood demigods. So, as Jenna is part of that crowd, she, Jace, Scotty and Kizzy will all be minor characters, who will be expanded later. **

** Disclaimer: I own nothing, all rights to Rick. Henry FitzRoy did actually exist so technically he's not mine either.**


	3. Tuesday Tragedies Being out of the Loop

**Chapter 2: Tuesday Tragedies; Being Out of the Loop**

'Mellie! You here?' I call into the wind. I must look a spectacle to any passing mortals—I don't think people are too accustomed to seeing girls standing in the middle of a park, yelling into thin air whilst carrying a stack of (technically non-existent) magazines.

_Pop!_

I recoil at the noise; it rings inside my head like a gunshot. I really need to get some more sleep, or some more coffee. People say a caffeine rush is no substitution for a good night's sleep. People have obviously never tried adding a shot of nectar to their double espresso.

'Lady Aline.' Mellie bobs slightly into a curtsey, her pale chiffon billowing out round her. She flicks her hair over her should—shampoo commercial style and taps at the tablet in her hand. 'Sorry I'm late; I got an internship at Aeolus' palace, so I've been all over the place.' She waves a lazy hand, grinning madly. I'm obviously not the only one getting by on sugar highs.

'That's brilliant, Mellie.' I say, switching my bundle to the other hand. The nylon cords dig into my fingers leaving a visible mark.

'D'you want me to do basic distribution? I've got—' She holds her tablet up to her face, tapping furiously at it with a stylus, '—43 seconds to spare.'

I grab the top half of the stack and wiggle it out of the bindings, holding it out to Mellie. 'Just the regular drop and can you get some to Aeolus? Ever since Jonny quit I've had to take them myself—getting through security's a nightmare ever since that incident with those _Anemoi Thuellai_.'

'Sure. I'll you around!' She gives me a quick wink and then disappears back into the air with the same _pop_ that she arrived with.

The problem with the social circuit is that it's never simple. I'm your perfect example. I'm that somebody that anybody who's anybody has to know but I'm also that somebody that nobody_ wants_ to know. So, if anybody wants to be anybody I'm the only body that can get them there in a week but I can also turn anybody into a nobody in a minute. Follow me?

Jenna Mulberry is that rare somebody, (I'm getting really tired of the whole 'somebody' thing, are you?) she's a rare person that wasn't made by anyone…she's a 'people to know' because she's genuinely nice and made good contacts that branch through our entire network. And that's why she's bound to be taken down at some point. No-one really cares when a party animal gets too wasted at one too many parties because it's to be expected—their popularity is disposable. But Jenna is quiet and everyone loves a bookworm gone wild.

She's been part of the happy power-couple for five years but Percy and Annabeth are on the scene…and they saved the world. The public is getting bored with the sugary, fluff pieces. It's time for a break-up story.

Everyone knows it's on the horizon but if I can time-stamp it and tag some drama onto the end it'll be the biggest story of the year.

But Jenna's a very private person. Plus I can't remember what number she lives at.

'Can I help you, dear?' Asks the elderly, mortal women standing in the doorway of apartment 6a.

'Oh, no sorry. I must be at the wrong apartment,' for the eleventh time, 'do you know where Jenna Mulberry lives?'

The old lady scowls. 'Down the hall,' she growls and slams the door in my face. Taken aback a bit, I walk left to the door with a brass 6b nailed to it.

Before I can even knock the door swings open and a girl of about fifteen with an olive t-shirt, black hair and bright green eyes rushes out, not even noticing me. She leaves the door very much open and I peek my head inside, leaving my twenty or so copies of _The Olympiad_ at the door. The living room can't be anymore Jenna-esque. The small space is filled with vintage, I'm-super-indie furniture and a large, wonky rainbow is painted haphazardly on the ceiling.

'Hey! Who are you?' Jenna marches into the middle of the room. Scowling, with one hand on her hip and the other clutching a wooden spoon, she looks ready to take on an army of killer muffins. 'Oh,' recognition crosses her face but she doesn't look any happier for it, 'it's you.' She turns and heads back into, judging by the cooking smells, the kitchen. I follow behind her. 'What do you want?' She growls whilst spooning out her cake mixture into cupcake-cases.

'I wanted to ask you about Jace,' I say slowly, moving my hand towards the iPhone on the counter. As if she can sense my prying she quickly grabs it and puts it in her pocket. My lips twist into a frown. 'Who was that leaving just now?'

Jenna looks away and her blond hair flops into her face, obscuring her eyes— a classic sign of lying. 'Sarah, just some mortal girl I'm tutoring for extra cash.' I would dig more into why she's hanging with some fifteen year-old that is clearly not a tutee but good stories are like boy/girlfriends; they're usually great while they last but every one has an expiration date and you definitely can't have two at the same time. It never works. So you should grab one, wait for it to die then go back for the other. Otherwise you just kill both.

'So about Jace then…'

'So what about Jace? We're friends, he throws good parties. That's it.'

'Look, we both know that's not true. And if I get the story from you we can spin it on Scotty somehow—I don't know but Stephi can make it work. But if I can't I'll just have to go with my other information that says that you've been two-timing Scotty for over three months. And nobody likes a cheat.' Confession; I have no such information, but it's a fact that lying through your teeth can only surface more lies, or bring about more. Either way it's a downwards spiral. And that can only be good for me.

Jenna pushes her baking tray into the oven and turns to face me with a malicious glint in her eye. 'I have no idea what you're talking about.' I'm pretty sure that if I could get high blood pressure Jenna's superior smirk would definitely have given it.

'I guess I'll just run the original follow-up story of today's.'

A brief look of terror crosses Jenna's face, 'What story?'

Trying to keep my voice as casually nonchalant as possible I reply smugly, 'Huh…I guess you should call Scotty now—.'

I'm cut off by a high-pitched siren squeal that gives me the urge to start running from Astraea and her band of immortal peace-keeping minions until I realise that it's my phone. It's Stephi calling me on the cell reserved only for emergencies and big scoops. I've only heard go off twice; once when Typon rose and the second time when the print room's coffee machine broke, so this had better be good.

'Sorry, Jenna, I've got to take this.' I quickly head back out the door and make a move to follow but stops, grumbling under her breath, at the door. I quickly slide a copy of _The Olympiad _under the door before picking up the phone.

'LenaLenaLenaLENA!' Stephi sounds out of breath and panicky…nothing out of the normal, but her voice is three octaves higher (something that should be breaking the sound barrier) and Stephi never uses phones, let alone the emergency number.

'Stephi! Quiet, calm, what's wrong!'

'Lena, It…it's.'

'Breath!' I yell, getting even more excited. This story has got to be big to be emergency phone-worthy.

'It's Percy Jackson. He's gone.'

'Gone? Like monster-chow gone?'

'No, he's invulnerable, remember?'

'Oh, yeah…I forgot about that dip in the Styx.' I reply, 'So what do you mean gone?'

'Gone. He's just gone, disappeared.'

Not quite the story I was going for, certainly no Typhon II but finding a missing Jackson could be a good break from the generic fluff stories on Percabeth. 'Look, demigods don't just disappear, he probably just ran off with the red-head.' There's me, ever the romantic.

'Nope, she's the oracle now; eternal maiden and all that. Jackson is off the radar. He disappeared right out of his C.B.H. cabin. My cousin, Juniper, lives in their forest. Apparently everything is still in his room. Nobody knows where he is.'

'Interesting. Who else knows, time and date?'

'Errr… The rest of Camp Half-Blood, at night and five days ago.'

'Five days ago!' FIVE DAYS AGO! Wait I just said that aloud. But seriously, five days is a lot in the journalistic world. A time-stamp doesn't matter when it's so long ago. And the whole of C.B.H. already knows. It's tragic being out of the loop, especially when you're me.

'Ok, type it and email me before you print. I'm going to go back to my place and see if I can get an audience with Poseidon.'

**A.N. I cut this chapter because I wanted to post something and I couldn't be bothered to write the scene of her in her Olympus apartment right now. Sorry this chapter is so choppy. I definitely don't like this but it had to be done.**

** And, about the reference to Astraea…if you want to know who she is, google it. Or wait for the next chapter. **

** R & R, people!**

** ~ Jelly**


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